Microsoft Power Point Files: A Secure Steganographic Carrier

One of the major characteristic of cryptography and steganography is unlimited and limited secret data conversion and embedding respectively. In steganography, concealing unlimited secret data in cover media is unfeasible. Majority of researchers have taken image, text, html, executable files as a steganographic cover media. In this proposed work the authors have considered Microsoft Power Point Files as a cover medium. The authors have developed a methodology which consist two techniques for embedding the valuable unlimited data with three layers of security and high robustness. The resultant stego file undoubtedly can be transmitted any where using any channel. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed methodology. resultant data can be understood only by those who can get it back into its original form. This technique is known as encryption. A major drawback of this method is that the existence of data is not hidden. Giving enough time the unreadable encrypted data can be obtained in its original form. As a part of solution to this kind of problems, the concept of steganography has considerably given much attention in recent years. The word steganography is a Greek word giving a meaning to it as ‘writing in hiding’. The main goal of steganography is to communicate message securely in a complete undetectable manner (Allan, 2001; Amin, Salleh, Ibrahim, Katmin, & Shamsuddin, 2003; Bender, Gruhl, Morimoto, & Lu, 1996; Dunbar, 2002; Castiglione, De Santis, & Soriente, 2007). It has been emerged as a skill of concealing private information DOI: 10.4018/jdcf.2011100102 International Journal of Digital Crime and Forensics, 3(4), 16-28, October-December 2011 17 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. inside a carrier that can be considered for all intents and ideas (Zou & Shi, 2005; Artz, 2001; Gutub, Al-Qahtani, & Tabakh, 2009; Johnson & Jajodia, 1998). Digital technology gives us a new way to relate steganographic techniques including hiding information in digital medias. It not only goes well beyond simply by embedding a text in an image, but also pertains to other media, including voice, text, binary files and communication channels (Swanson, Zhu, & Tewfik, 1996; Petitcolas, Anderson, & Kuhn, 1999; Anderson & Petitcolas, 1998). It can be mentioned here that steganography, in respect to constructive approach, generally provides vast potential security and legal data hiding. As far as corporate sectors are concerned, if they cannot hide their important information, this may lead to damage extremely the company’s profitability as well as its sustainability. Again, as a destructive approach, even if steganography is not a threat in general, it may have some bad impacts on the areas where one wants to deal with some kind of unwanted illegal matters (Shejul & Kulkarni, 2010; Sahoo & Tiwari, 2008; Sutaone & Khandare, 2008; Liu & Tsai, 2007; Yan & Ping, 2009).